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TAMPA BAY TIMES

Florida Woman Busted As Fake Plastic Surgeon After Awful Nose Job

Florida Woman Busted As Fake Plastic Surgeon After Awful Nose Job
Cassidy Slockett

In our digital era, having a pretty face is more important than ever. We spend our workdays staring at ourselves on Zoom cameras, and our off-time watching TikTok and Instagram videos.

Applying online face filters for slimming noses, tucking cheeks, perfecting skin is always an option. Of course, there are also more, well, permanent effects available on the market. Please, just be careful ...

As first reported by the Miami Herald, Alcalira Jimenez De Rodriguez, 56, was arrested for posing as a plastic surgeon after a patient's nose job went awry.

The charges against the woman from the town of Doral, west of Miami, include practicing medicine without a license and resisting arrest. The first charge was later elevated to a second-degree felony because of the disfigurement of the patient's nose.

Vincenzo Zurlo began getting Botox treatments a few months ago. On the recommendation of a friend, he had visited Millennium Anti-Aging and Surgery Center for the anti-aging procedure multiple times before finally undergoing a more drastic procedure: rhinoplasty.

An undercover detective posed as a patient.

In February 2020, Zurlo paid $2,800 for a nose job, and as with most medical procedures, was prescribed antibiotics and painkillers.

A few weeks later, frustrated with an exceptionally slow healing process and what appeared to be an ugly nose under all the gauze, he called his doctor, who agreed to fix his nose. In May 2020, Zurlo again paid another $2,800 to go back under the knife.

While it's not particularly rare to be disappointed with the results of a nose job, the resulting excruciating pain was a sign that something was amiss. Upon a closer look at his prescriptions, Zurlo saw that they were not written in Rodriguez's name, the Miami Herald reports.

Zurlo called the police after Rodriguez refused to share her medical practitioner number. The Florida Health Department sent in an undercover detective, posing as a client interested in plastic surgery, who caught Rodriguez mid-surgery and had her arrested on the spot. No word on how that last amateur nip or tuck turned out.

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Green

Forest Networks? Revisiting The Science Of Trees And Funghi "Reaching Out"

A compelling story about how forest fungal networks communicate has garnered much public interest. Is any of it true?

Thomas Brail films the roots of a cut tree with his smartphone.

Arborist and conservationist Thomas Brail at a clearcutting near his hometown of Mazamet in the Tarn, France.

Melanie Jones, Jason Hoeksema, & Justine Karst

Over the past few years, a fascinating narrative about forests and fungi has captured the public imagination. It holds that the roots of neighboring trees can be connected by fungal filaments, forming massive underground networks that can span entire forests — a so-called wood-wide web. Through this web, the story goes, trees share carbon, water, and other nutrients, and even send chemical warnings of dangers such as insect attacks. The narrative — recounted in books, podcasts, TV series, documentaries, and news articles — has prompted some experts to rethink not only forest management but the relationships between self-interest and altruism in human society.

But is any of it true?

The three of us have studied forest fungi for our whole careers, and even we were surprised by some of the more extraordinary claims surfacing in the media about the wood-wide web. Thinking we had missed something, we thoroughly reviewed 26 field studies, including several of our own, that looked at the role fungal networks play in resource transfer in forests. What we found shows how easily confirmation bias, unchecked claims, and credulous news reporting can, over time, distort research findings beyond recognition. It should serve as a cautionary tale for scientists and journalists alike.

First, let’s be clear: Fungi do grow inside and on tree roots, forming a symbiosis called a mycorrhiza, or fungus-root. Mycorrhizae are essential for the normal growth of trees. Among other things, the fungi can take up from the soil, and transfer to the tree, nutrients that roots could not otherwise access. In return, fungi receive from the roots sugars they need to grow.

As fungal filaments spread out through forest soil, they will often, at least temporarily, physically connect the roots of two neighboring trees. The resulting system of interconnected tree roots is called a common mycorrhizal network, or CMN.

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